THE ST. GOTTHARD RAILWAY.
AMSTEG.
The number of railroad bridges on the St. Gotthard astonished me. Their name is legion. Across them long trains make their way among the clouds like monster centipedes, creeping along the mountain-sides, or over lofty viaducts.
Here man's triumph over nature is complete. How puny seems at first his strength when measured with the wind and avalanche! But mind has proved superior to matter. The ax was made, and at its sturdy stroke the forest yielded up its tribute for the construction of this pathway. The caverns of the earth were also forced to surrender the iron treasured there for ages, and rails were made, along whose glittering lines a crowded train now glides as smoothly as a boat upon the waves. And yet these awful cliffs still scowl so savagely on either side, that the steel rail, which rests upon their shelves of rock, seems often like a thread of fate, by which a thousand lives are held suspended over the abyss.
